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Well, I’m here!  I’ve only been here for four days, but I think I’m settling in okay.  I’m in Antofagasta with my host family.  My host family consists of four people:  the mom, Susana, the dad, Francisco, the daughter, Michelle (12), and the son, Mauricio (7).  We live in a group of six houses near the center of Antofagasta in casa four.  One of the other exchange students named Suhail lives in casa one.  Antofagasta is surrounded by…nothing.  It’s basically in the middle of a desert.  We are next to the Pacific Ocean, though.  I went to one of the beaches on Wednesday but I didn’t swim.

Wow, so much has happened in the last few days, I don’t know where to start!  I guess I’ll start with some of the things I’ve learned about Chilean culture.  One thing is greetings:  women always do a kiss on the cheek to both men and women.  Men do a kiss on the cheek to women, but shake hands or embrace to men.  Family is VERY important here.  Families do everything together: go to the store, eat meals, pick up the kids from school, everything!  Michelle and Mauricio go to school (colegio) from 8 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon and then come home for lunch.  Sometimes they have classes after than, sometimes they don’t.

When it comes to meals, my family has three meals a day.  Breakfast or desayuno is around 7 or 8 in the morning and usually consists of buttered bread, ham, and cheese.  Adults have coffee or tea and kids have milk, juice, or tea.  Lunch or almuerzo is the biggest meal of the day and is around 2 in the afternoon.  It has two courses:  the first course is usually soup in my family and then the second course is salad or pasta.  Once (yes, eleven in Spanish) is kinda like a really light dinner and that’s around 8 at night.  It usually consists of sandwiches kinda like at breakfast.  We usually get fresh bread and fruit everyday so I’m pretty much in heaven right now!

The university I’m attending is Universidad Católica del Norte en Antofagasta.  Antofagasta is the original campus for this university.  Most of my classes are in the Journalism (Periodismo) Department and I have one class in the Astronomy (Astronomía) Department.  The class schedule is in blocks, meaning that most classes last for about an hour and a half and you meet twice a week for most classes.  All of my classes are like that except for the astronomy class which meets three times a week for an hour and a half.  I am one of eight study abroad students.  Three of us are from the United States, three are from México, one is from Argentina, and one is from Bolivia.

Today, I rode the micro bus for the first time.  I’m not sure that I like it very much.  I’m not sure that I like cars in general here, don’t really like city driving!  People use their horns freely, too.  Scares the crap out of me every time!

I think that’s all for now.  I’ll get some pictures up soon…¡Chao!

Sarah

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